Remember the good hours when the words are flowing well. And never mind the bad hours there is no life without them.

Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.

I try to write a certain amount each day, five days a week. A rule sometimes broken is better than no rule.

Discount my partiality, but my report is that so far The Winds of War is looking good.

This is an excellent martini — sort of tastes like it isn't there at all, just a cold cloud.

Some people think that all the equipment you need to discuss religion is a mouth.

The door available to everyone that can lead to happiness & success is the modest door of the public library. I found it to be so in my own life and work.

I felt there's a wealth in Jewish tradition, a great inheritance. I'd be a jerk not to take advantage of it.

The only true non-conformists are in the asylums; the only radically free spirits are in the death house awaiting the chair. We live by patterns.

Peace, if it ever exists, will not be based on the fear of war, but on the love of peace. It will not be the abstaining from an act, but the coming of a state of mind.

The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots. If you're not an idiot, but find yourself in the Navy, you can only operate well by pretending to be one.

Send silent blessings to those that oppose you, so they may also find peace within themselves—and the strength and perseverance to embark on their life path.

Get out on the stage of life.

Whenever you're making a movie, especially when you're writing, you always have self-doubts.

Dear God, Please untie the nots. All of the can nots, should nots, may nots and have nots. Please erase from my mind the thoughts that I am not good enough.

One moment of magic, or one big moment to capture the match.

There was no more dangerous a time in a nation's life than the passing of a ruler when the succession was in doubt.

We have the right, and the obligation, to tell old stories in our own ways, because they are our stories.

The worst nightmare I ever had about Vietnam was that I had to go back. I woke up in a sweat, in total terror.

Surely the fact that a uniformed police officer is wearing his hair below his collar will make him no less identifiable as a policeman.

It's easy to say no, I'm not going to do that. I'm not leaving the house.